abstract
| - The Dragon-Arch of Keiala Maya is a crystal bridge whose seven spans trace a serpentine line over a low rocky Western reef. Built to appear carved from ice and frozen wind and inlaid with blue glass and copper, the bridge's eight towers appear from a distance to be hovering very slightly just over the sea. The copper oxidizes with the swell of the seas, which then wear away the patina with stinging spray, so that the inlays are always intricately patterned with green. Built at the height of the Shogunate, it was meant to be a base of operations for a sorcerer's exploring vessels; one of the bridge's curves shelters a small harbor, and the top of the spans contain comfortable living space as well as storage rooms. An observatory takes up much of the very top level. Certain rooms in the fifth tower house a sizeable library. During the height of the Shogunate and the centuries following, the manse was inhabited continuously by a series of Western sorcerers. Its history came to an abrupt break, however, when the Great Contagion struck down every inhabitant of the place. For the next several centuries it lay empty, its books moldering and its harbor gradually silting in. The manse was barely touched by the Faerie invasion, unscathed in the subsequent fights, and hardly noticed the rise of the Scarlet Empress: it was lost to history. Then, two years after the breaking of the Jade Prison, a Solar Exalt called Adamant Fern came upon the manse. It was completely intact, with even some of its furniture remaining. The library was mostly ruined, its books gone to dust; but a few remained, and one of them taught her a spell to restore the rest. She decided that she liked the place, and settled in to restore it and make it once again a home. Later, after she met Daughter of the Amber Melody, the two agreed to share ownership of the manse; both are attuned to it, and each carries one of its two hearthstones.
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